Raj Thakre, Laloo Yadav and Abject failure of UP - Bihar

Once again the same old story…
Raj Thakre is once again at the center stage…

It had happened in past and I had written about it…
This times a little different thought…. May be I have begun to understand his stand now…

A few points strike right away…
First one being; why any advertisement was not given in any of the Marathi local news papers? Giving news only in north Indian papers…. Is it not discrimination? Or may be it was a preplanned act.

Second one being… when all the north Indian leaders stand in for defense of so called “Bhaiyaas”,
Why not a single Marathi politician supported Raj Thakre except for Narayan Rane?
I can understand that Shiv Sena must be in a catch-22 situation… they can not support Raj for fear that he will gain political advantage. And if they don’t then they appear like abandoning Marathi people…

Whatever happened was a little necessary because it brought out what is going on in railways under Laloo Yadav…and also it highlighted the failed state of UP and Bihar…
Anyway, let's come to the main point…. The point to ponder is, why do so many poor people from UP-Bihar have to migrate to Mumbai?

This highlights the abject failure of the local governments in UP and Bihar. They can’t even provide enough opportunities in the state that will keep the grass root level people employed.

I have stayed in various cities in India but everywhere I have noticed that people who generally migrate to other states are generally highly qualified professionals who go out searching for bigger challenges. But the grass root level jobs like the labor are always with the local population.

But in case of UP – Bihar people seem to be moving out even for basic jobs. Primarily because there does not seem to be any substantial industrial / agricultural growth in the region.
All the north Indian leaders who talk Maharashtra government and blame Marathi’s and so on… have they ever thought about why so many people migrate?

Bihar arguably has one of the best farmlands in the country… it is also home to a lot of mines…
Remember that Jamshedji Tata started his first steel factory in Bihar…
First President of India…. Babu Rajendra Prasad was also from Bihar…
But after that initial head start… everything went downhill after leaders like Laloo and Nitish took over the helm. I am not wrong at the time of independence Bihar was one of the richest and developed states due to all the steel plants... mines etc..

As far as UP is concerned… it has given the whole bunch of political leaders to the nation including Nehru - Gandhi family. The Most populated state in the country…. having maximum number of Assembly seats…it also has some good industrialized areas… in regions surrounding Delhi… but what about the rest?

And what do all these so called “representatives of the people” do for them? They somehow seem to be busy in fooling around the poor people and maintain their political positions… it is not that resources are not available… Especially the Eastern part of Utter Pradesh

Laloo… Nitish, Paswan and Mayavati better clean their own home first….. :-)
…Here is a good article on same lines

Nothing Official About It

After 15th September, though everyone was looking worried…confused… tensed… and all those similar words, the fact that everyone was trying to be secured for future had created a totally different atmosphere in the office…

Especially after our top brass itself told us to prepare for plan B, the office was completely transformed…

Here lay a bunch of people… in thousands… and all seeking for jobs… it reminded me of college days.

A lot of people were preparing together… all helping each other to get a job.
Information about interviews… referrals were openly exchanged, when someone came back from interview, all others should interview him again to check out the questions… reactions… treatments given and all to gauge the outside industry reaction to our crisis.

It also reminded me of the viva’s during college days. The moment someone came out of the examiner‘s cabin, all sitting outside would surround him to find out about questions… examiners mood… his favorite topics etc etc.

We used to come to office… as usual… but if anyone had any interview call then it was no more a matter of secrecy as it normally is. People would tell all others that they have an interview scheduled… if it is telephonic then sometimes even conference rooms were used for giving interviews.

If someone had to go to attend a face to face interview then people would inform boss and go for attending interview during office time.

It was a totally different office for at least 3 weeks period during which our future was uncertain. No work… the only activities were either study or surf or chitchat at desks or sitting in the canteen… sometimes I used to think whether to go to office or not after getting up…

Alas… gone are those wonderful days now… we are no more “Lehman Brothers” now…. We are “Nomura Holdings”… the work is slowly picking up pace… but the habits of those days are making it a little bit difficult to start work again in full throttle.

It was amazing to observe how people who were working full fledged just three weeks ago became so sluggish…. It is very easy to get spoiled I guess….

Life After Lehman

It’s around three weeks now… but it all seems so long…

15^th September… Monday, the day when the great Lehman Brothers filed for chapter 11… In the India office day began as usual. For past two weeks stocks were tumbling but we were hopeful that we could survive. From USD 16 it came down to 14…. 8… then finally in the range of 4… in the end we saw it touching 0.7 in the pre market rates… L

We were sure that on Friday management was in search of a buyer… and on Monday we would get some concrete news… but instead the news of bankruptcy came in. All operations were suspended… for the first time in life I was in office with no work officially. I was never “on bench” throughout my career and never expected to be on this special kind of bench.

Whole office was suddenly full of uncertainty… what will happen to jobs… will there be mass layoffs… or maybe we will be in same office but wearing new ID’s… nothing was sure…

All the people who till 2 days before were busy completing daily tasks were suddenly moving all their personal belongings from the office. And news and images of people from new York and London offices moving out with belongings and all made everyone think that there was no future left.

Discussing with colleagues across the oceans only added to the panic…

All of a sudden everyone was in doubt. And when even senior management finally started asking us to prepare plan B, everyone went into a panic mode. All of a sudden everyone started applying everywhere. Of course everyone out there in the job market was aware of this and all the vultures out there in the job market were ready to grab whatever they could as cheaply as they could….

One of the major reasons was the very high salaries of Lehman. Many employees had financial commitments like home loans that were in proportion to their current salaries. The very prospect of job loss brought with it grinding worries about how to meet those obligations. And that was one of the major reasons that made people search frantically for new jobs.

Now to add to the trouble, service sector companies that were also facing the heat of the American meltdown, started layoffs in thousands… so all of a sudden job market was flooded…

Soon “Lehman special” walk ins were arranged by many companies… and people who were not sure what to do next started flocking there… companies knew that we were cornered and would come over without much salary negotiations. They were not at all discussing salaries… they would interview people and then just say that “we would let you know later”… even when interviews went too good… then also they would not release offers….

Everyone was waiting for a final collapse so that when we would officially become jobless they could take us on their terms. Some of us had even 4 “verbal offers” with no official offer letter.

Soon the news of Barclays taking over Lehman’s North American operations came over… the news of saved jobs kindled hopes. People were now a little composed… interviews reduced. Many decided to wait and watch. Still there were doubts since no one had taken over Indian operations… and to the ultimate question was still unanswered.

The fact that Barclays had given only three month guarantee to US employees did little to assure Indian employees who were accustomed to “permanent” jobs. So the atmosphere of doubt still remained.

Soon Barclays people were in India to access the office. Senior management was very happy with their feedback and were very much sure that they were going to take over but talks failed and again it was back to square one. Now people started getting anxious and started putting down papers. In order to stop the exodus management started enforcing one month contractual notice period.

In the background there were news of Credit Suisse and Nomura were also in contact with management for tasking over the Powai unit.

Finally few days ago management’s efforts bore fruits and there was announcements that Powai unit was being taken over by Nomura Holdings Inc. of Japan. The best thing they did was to guarantee no job cuts and no salary cuts. This put to rest all the speculations and the good mood is back again in the office.

On 3^rd we got internal news that Nomura has taken us over…

On 6^th the one of the Nomura board members addressed the Powai unit and welcomed everyone onboard Nomura…

On 10th we are supposed to get our official employment contracts from Nomura.

A new era has begun…

Sinking ship dilemma....

Lehman Brothers has filed for bankruptcy…
Of course for past one week no one was working in real sense… only half hearted…
Drowned share prices had already drowned everyone’s hopes...
Somehow in all this I have a sense of déjà vu…

Of course this is first time I am facing a bankruptcy situation….
But underlying feelings they are all the same…
Under stress I somehow tend to get calm and composed… but excited at the same time….
Everyone around seem to be frantic but not me…
This has happened quite a few times before….
It has happened when one of my subordinates was on verge of dying in the Bombay High fields….

It happened when once I was in office in L&T and it was shut down due to rumor of Balasaheb Thakrey’s arrest… while everyone left in frenzy fearing riots…
I stayed back in office till late evening and went home after it all settled down.
Same thing had happened when once it rained so much that even western lines failed…. Again everyone worried...panicking… but not me…
Don’t know why this happens…
I happened a few times while in Infosys also…

But this time it is a little different….. I would like to call it my sinking ship dilemma….
Shall I jump off the ship… or wait till the captain calls for Abandon ship and then leave using the safety raft?
If I jump off… then I will have to struggle in the sea all alone…. Clutching to whatever I can for safety…
But I will be independent….
But If I stay back… I may get some cushion… may be some compensation….
Not sure what way to go…
Let’s see….

I am not willing to stay back till people in US come to office and give us some news….
UK teams are already in packing off mode…
May be tomorrow will bring out more news….

Beijing Olympics and after….

The Olympics are over… this I am a little more happy…

We got three medals… highest ever for the nation… out of curiosity I used to keep open the Olympics official website open whole day and used to check the medal tally.

Initially at bottom… after Abhinav Bindra's gpld medal, India suddenly zoomed at a position around 10-12…. Buoyed… my frequency for checking medal tally and news websites for any more medals also increased.

Out of excitement I also put up a wall paper from Olympics website on my desktop.. :-)

Days passed by… from the "teens" we slowly graduated into the "twenties" then "thirties" and finally ended up in the "fifties"

In the end two of our men got bronze medals… thanks to Sushil Kumar and Vijender Kumar . This took our tally to 3... Our highest ever…

The interesting part started after that. The winners were bestowed with too many prizes… a rare sight in a country where only cricketers get all the money. If they had given that much money to them before Olympics for practice and equipments etc… and provided them with quality coaches then results might have been even better…

As I kept browsing through different news.. Articled… posts etc… I came across a few more interesting things…like The sports ministry has a budget of around 170 crores… most of which is spent on salaries of the staff…

For some teams like badminton, there was no coach but a "government official" was sent with them instead… What a way to have a full sponsored "picnic" at the of not only govt money but also the prospect of winning some medals…

Worst came after Abhinav Bindra wrote some articles in Times of India after they invited him as a guest editor…

After he rightly pointed toward the apathy and lack of knowledge and skills among those who manage the sports in India.. Mostly politicians and officials who have never played the game…

Next day the newspaper had remark from Mr. Kalmadi on those articles… saying that politicians are best suited as sports chiefs since they can gather large amounts of funds…

The question is where are those funds…?

So much of apathy… in a way it is woven in our culture that projects sports in bad light…

I remember something like..

"Padhoge likhoge banoge nawab"

"Kheloge koodoge banoge kharab…."

I am not sure of exact wording… but it is something like that…If this is our viewpoint then no wonder we lack behind in sports...

The player who reached in the quarter finals in the boxing during Sidney Olympics… Gurcharan Singh

after he failed to win medal… he did not want to waste his career in a country where he would have to weight for another 4 years… he quit playing for India and went to US for joining professional boxing circuits…

I hope that somehow our govt will not let this happen to other players…. Otherwise it won't be too long before we see Vijender kumar quitting boxing and turning to modeling and acting as career.

No doubt china ruled the games in all respects.. . I was also amazed by how small countries manage to clinch quite a few medals… and that too countries like Kenya that are not only poor but also facing internal problems…

For first few days in the medal tally behind the US and China was south Korea and not the usual suspects like Russia Britain or Australia…

So much of passion... Efforts… to win for own country…that more than 30 world records were broken during the Olympics.

As far as our country is concerned the fears of Abhinav Bindra are already coming true it seems… the days of glory seem to be over for those brave sportsmen who fought against all odds… even when their own government that did not support them…

Sri Lanka tour has already taken importance….

We are back to square one...